Groundbreaking plans will be announced in the coming months.
The nine-hole Sweetens Cove – ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 1 public-access golf course in Tennessee – announced this week that it will collaborate with Reef Capital Partners to introduce a new par-3 course and much more.
Plans also call for stay-and-play cabins, a new winding putting green, a fishing dock, a skeet range, a restaurant and a distillery at the famously laid-back facility in South Pittsburg, about a 30-minute drive west from Chattanooga. Groundbreaking plans will be announced in the coming months.
Sweetens Cove had a tough 2024, closing for several months to replant greens and fairways after a particularly bad winter killed off much of the playing surfaces – its operators opted to shut down for repairs instead of presenting sub-standard conditions. The course reopened this fall with new grass that has grown in well, and the layout should regain its often fiery and bouncy playing conditions in 2025.
The masterplan for expansion at Sweetens Cove includes a par-3 course, shooting range, fishing dock, cabins, a restaurant, distillery, events space and more. (Courtesy of Reef Capital Partners)
Besides excelling as a nine-hole layout, Sweetens Cove is different than most courses in many other ways. Operators started several years ago offering all-day passes instead of traditional tee times, with players going round and round the course as often as they like. The dress code is basically non-existent, and music typically blasts from a patio overlooking the first tee and ninth green. The clubhouse is named the Shed because it is one, and it’s packed with much-loved merchandise sporting multiple logos. A patio built around a tree has been tagged as the heckle deck.
There have been discussions about expansion for years, with the biggest concern among die-hard fans being that the facility retains its vibe.
“Sweetens Cove grabs you the moment you step onto the course – there’s an energy here that you won’t find anywhere else,” Jared Lucero, CEO of Reef Capital Partners, said in a media release announcing the new partnership for which terms were not disclosed. “It’s not just about golf; it’s about the experience, the people and the simplicity of spending a day out here.
“We aim to preserve that unique charm while adding a place to stay, a bit more to do, including Sweetens at Night, and some amazing food and drinks. Those things will only make every visit even more memorable, whether you’re playing the course for the first time or the hundredth.”
The heckle deck overlooks the ninth green at Sweetens Cove in Tennessee, as seen after the course reopened following the re-grassing of its greens in 2024. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Sweetens Cove opened in 2015 on the site of a former course, which was erased as a new course was laid out by the team of Tad King and Rob Collins. It quickly gained a following among Golfweek’s Best course raters and catapulted into the top 100 modern courses in the U.S., where it now is No. 90.
King and Collins soon took over operations of Sweetens Cove from its founding family, and investors have come onboard including sports stars Peyton Manning and Andy Roddick. The ownership group also has released a bourbon named for the course, with the planned small-batch distillery an extension of that.
“I’ve been with Sweetens Cove from the beginning, from designing and building the original course with Tad to being responsible for its operations and management for the last 10 years,” Collins said in the media release. “It is thrilling to me and everyone involved with Sweetens Cove to see how the expansion builds on that foundation and brings to life every big dream we ever had for the place.”
Sweetens Cove was built on the site of a former course, but the new design by Tad Kind and Rob Collins vaulted into the No. 1 spot among Golfweek’s Best ranking of public-access courses in Tennessee. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Reef Capital Partners’ has been expanding in golf with its development of Black Desert Resort in Utah, which opened in 2023, jumped to the No. 1 spot among that state’s public-access courses and recently hosted an eponymous PGA Tour event. The company also is developing Marcella Deer Valley, which will include Tiger Woods designing his first mountain course.
“Reef Capital Partners has an incredible vision for this expansion,” Collins said in the media release. “They came to Sweetens to play the course and by the seventh fairway they had drawn up a model, envisioning a par-3 short course that offers flexibility and creativity. It’s not just a regular short course – you can play each hole in multiple ways, adding a cross-country style that you won’t find anywhere else.”
Sweetens Cove tee times are coveted and sell out incredibly quickly each year, a testament to the layout’s architecture as much as its atmosphere. King-Collins Golf Design has gone on to lay out several other courses around the country including Landmand, which opened in 2022 in Nebraska and has jumped to the No. 1 spot in that state’s ranking of public-access layouts.
“Sweetens Cove is a golf anomaly,” GM Matt Adamski said in the media release. “We’ve created a place where you can play all day with no tee times, no dress codes and no pressure. It’s a giant adult playground, where everyone can find something to love.
“(The expansion) will maintain our unique culture and enhance guest experience. The demand is incredible – we’re sold out through the end of the year. But even with this expansion, we’re maintaining our focus on a quality experience by keeping a limit on the number of daily passes to ensure that Sweetens Cove remains the special place people love.”
Check out the photos of a new reversible nine-hole course by the team behind Landmand and Sweetens Cove.
One of the more interesting golf course openings of 2024 has been Crossroads at the private Palmetto Bluff in Bluffton, South Carolina. It’s fitting that it was designed by one of golf’s more interesting firms, King-Collins Golf Course Design.
Tad King and Rob Collins are the architects – and now co-owners – of the nine-hole Sweetens Cove, which for the better part of a decade has been the No. 1 ranked public-access layout in Tennessee. They also designed Landmand, which in two years has shot up to become the No. 1 public-access course in Nebraska. Their resume of courses continues to grow, including the new Red Feather in Texas.
At Crossroads, they went back to their nine-hole roots. Situated on 54 acres of rolling dunes alongside an extensive inland waterway, the layout features a mix of par 3s, 4s and 5s integrated into a reversible layout. Playing it in one direction sports the name The Hammer, and the other direction is called The Press as the course crisscrosses itself. Like Sweetens Cove, the layout was built with match play in mind and is a great venue for cross-country golf in which players pick their own holes, should they choose.
Crossroads opened in January of 2024, the second course at Palmetto Bluff following the Jack Nicklaus-designed May River course that opened in 2005. In keeping with a low-key vibe, Crossroads features a pro shop in an Airstream trailer and a food truck on site, plus a 34,000-square-foot Himalayas-style putting green near the first tee. The course is accessible by electric boat or kayak. The course plays anywhere from 1,000 yards to 3,100.
The Crossroads is mostly private, but there are a limited number of tee times available to guests of the onsite and upscale hotel at Montage Palmetto Bluff.
Check out a selection of the latest photos of Crossroads below.
In a social media post announcing the move Sunday, the course owners explained how the harsh winter included snow, ice and a nearly two-week stretch of freezing temperatures that damaged turf on the course in South Pittsburg, Tennessee.
Their attemped defensive measures to save the dormant Bermuda grass were unsuccessful as it “hit us harder than we could have ever imagined.” Instead of remaining open with sub-standard conditions, the owners made the tough – and expensive – decision to shut it down this summer to focus on returning the nine-hole layout to excellent conditions.
The rural Sweetens Cove has become almost a pilgrimage for many golfers who seek a perfect vibe as well as interesting architecture, and the course has in recent years sold all-day passes that allow players to kick back on the club’s heckle deck before venturing out for more golf.
Besides being ranked No. 1 in Tennessee on Golfweek’s Best list of top courses in each state, the layout is No. 32 on the list of top public-access courses in the country and No. 84 on the list of all modern courses built since 1960 in the U.S. The layout was designed by Tad King and Rob Collins and opened in 2015. The course’s ownership group includes Collins, Tom Nolan, Andy Roddick, Peyton Manning and Skip Bronson.
Collins confirmed the news in a text to Golfweek in which he promised, “We’ll be back better than ever in September!”
— SweetensCoveGolfClub (@SweetensCove) May 5, 2024
The operators’ tweet continued:
“Saying that, is with a heavy heart that we have made the decision to shut down the golf course to re-grass everything that Mother Nature took from us. We will be shutting down effective May 27 to August 31 and reopening on Sept. 1.”
Sweetens Cove will give anyone who has booked a pass during the closure first dibs – including a 25-percent discount – for a 2025 pass.
The announcement ended with:
“Please be patient with us as we will work to get you taken care of as soon as possible so pour out a little bourbon with us and toast the future of what will be amazing conditions going forward.
“To new friends. Old friends. And a day a Sweetens.”
Golfweek’s experts have ranked the Top 200 courses built since 1960, such as Bandon Dunes, Whistling Straits and more.
Want to play the great modern golf courses in the U.S.? From Hawaii to Boston, we have you covered. So welcome to the Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of the Top 200 Modern Courses built in or after 1960 in the United States.
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings. The top handful of courses in the world have an average rating of above 9, while many excellent layouts fall into the high-6 to the 8 range.
To ensure these lists are up-to-date, Golfweek’s Best in recent years has altered how the individual ratings are compiled into the rankings. Only ratings from rounds played in the past 10 years are included in the compilations. This helps ensure that any course in the rankings still measures up.
Courses also must have a minimum of 25 votes to qualify for the Top 200 Modern or the Top 200 Classic. Other Golfweek’s Best lists, such as Best Courses You Can Play or Best Private, do not require as many votes. This makes it possible that a course can show up on other lists but not on the premium Top 200 lists.
There’s one course of particular note this year. Landmand Golf Club in Homer, Nebraska, debuts the highest of the courses new to this list, climbing into a tie for 26th. Designed by Tad King and Rob Collins, Landmand opened in 2022. It and the Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes are the only courses to have opened since 2020 to rank among the top 200.
Each course is listed with its average rating next to the name, then the location, the year it opened and the designers. The list notes in parenthesis next to the name of each course where that course ranked in 2022.
After the designers are several designations that note what type of facility it is:
The Volunteer State proves that nine holes can be enough with Sweetens Cove and the Course at Sewanee.
Golfweek’s Best is willing to buck tradition when it comes to the top public-access layouts in Tennessee, as two of the three highest ranked layouts are just nine holes.
Sweetens Cove, which has built a loyal following online and on its untraditional tee sheet, comes in at No. 1. Located about halfway between Nashville and Atlanta in tiny South Pittsburg, the design by the firm of King-Collins offers fresh twists on classic architectural features across its nine holes. It has created massive interest in a flat floodplain between mountains, proving that golfers are more than willing to travel to find a good time.
Likewise, the Gil Hanse-redesigned Course at Sewanee is a can’t miss in Tennessee despite being just nine holes. Perched atop a mountain at the University of the South, several holes feature long views over a valley while various tees allow the nine holes to play entirely differently on subsequent loops. Sewanee comes in at No. 3 on Golfweek’s Best 2022 public-access list for Tennessee.
Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with that of top public-access courses in each state among the most popular. All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.
(m): Modern course, built in or after 1960 (c): Classic course, built before 1960
Note: If there is a number in the parenthesis with the m or c, that indicates where that course ranks among Golfweek’s Best top 200 modern or classic courses.
SOUTH PITTSBURG, Tennessee – There’s not much to say about Sweetens Cove Golf Club that hasn’t already been said. Tucked just off a highway in the heart of rolling Tennessee hills, the course with an ownership group that includes Peyton Manning, Andy Roddick, PGA Tour vet Keith Mitchell and others is arguably golf’s greatest success story of the last decade.
What makes it so special? The Rob Collins layout is one that takes your breath away, from the moment you step to the first tee. But the on-site vibe — no beverage or food service, no dress code, unlimited play — is one that rekindles any love lost on stuffy corporate outings.
General manager Matt Adamski is the perfect representative for Sweetens Cove. Part golf addict, part trash talker, Adamski once played 254 holes here in a single day. That’d be like Joey Chestnut buying a hot dog cart, working it through a summer season and then eating every leftover before closing up for the winter.
Adamski starts each day with a morning chat for the group on hand before sending them on their way. It’s a funny, irreverent salvo, intended to put the players at ease and get them into the right mindset. He offers suggestions for money-game loops, and mentions what other groups have done in the past that he’s found interesting.
Adamski recently opened up to Golfweek on what he loves about coming to work each day, how he thinks Sweetens’ tee time system might cause sweeping changes in the industry and what’s next for the golf world’s darling.
Rob Collins and design partner Tad King break the glass ceiling with Landmand Golf Club in Nebraska.
Big and bold – good words to live by. Interesting, different, unlikely. All attributes ascribed to artists, authors, chefs, actors … really anyone who can grab attention and hold it.
Even golf course architects.
Rob Collins initially grabbed attention for his big and bold design at Sweetens Cove Golf Club which opened in 2015 in remote Tennessee. A nine-holer built on a flat floodplain amidst the Appalachian Mountains, Sweetens Cove had to grab attention and hold it – a run-of-the-mill design atop the previous course named Sequatchie Valley on the same damp site might have drawn flies, but not many golfers.
Instead, Collins and his design partner, Tad King, moved some 300,000 cubic yards of dirt to erect what has become Tennessee’s No. 1-ranked public-access course in Golfweek’s Best ratings. Big greens, bold slopes – there are those words again, and at Sweetens Cove, those concepts have drawn a loyal following of golfers who will drive to the middle of nowhere to experience something different and entirely interesting.
“I always did believe there was some form of greatness to be achieved out there, and that it could be very popular,” Collins said of Sweetens Cove, the first course built by his and King’s then-new golf architecture firm, King-Collins. “It was so different and so unique and so much fun, the early adopters of the place gave us so much enthusiasm and belief in what we had done. It was like a religious experience for a lot of people.”
Now comes the next step in big and bold for King-Collins, on a completely different landscape and scale – and after waiting longer than either could have imagined after Sweetens Cove’s ascent into the top 100 modern golf courses in the U.S.
The public-access Landmand Golf Club in eastern Nebraska, King-Collins’ first original 18-hole layout, opens for regular play September 3 on what Collins describes as simply crazy terrain for golf. Built atop and around bluffs and dunes near the village of Homer in the Loess Hills – geologic terrain left in the wake of retreating glaciers during the last Ice Age – Landmand presented unique challenges and opportunities in a wide-open and extreme landscape with views for miles. Collins said he and King went all-out in trying to take advantage of everything the site, including its 150 feet of elevation changes, offered.
An all-timer today @LandmandG – it’s impossible to express the amount of gratitude that Tad & I feel toward @wanders1140 & his great family for giving us this opportunity. It was a thrill from start to finish playing shots into features that so many labored over. pic.twitter.com/cujUBk2pQk
“You had to just put the pedal down and go for it,” Collins said of his approach to Landmand. “The first time you see it, the scale is just going to blow your mind. Every time I go out there, I laugh about it. Things that are gigantic in reality just shrink in this landscape.”
On such a vast playing field – and because of the region’s frequent gusty winds – Collins said his team was inspired to install massive fairways, sometimes with one fairway corridor serving two holes. None of the fairways are less than 80 yards wide, several single fairways top out at more than 100 yards wide and the connecting fairways are stretched beyond 150 yards.
“A 60- or 70-yard-wide fairway just doesn’t cut it out there because it shrinks visually in the scale of that landscape,” Collins said. “And so, a 60-yard fairway would look 30 yards wide. You hit a ball out there and walk down into the fairway, you’re like, ‘My God, it’s gigantic, there’s no way I could have missed this fairway.’ You need features that are just that big out there.”
The green for the short par-4 17th as the grass grows in at Landmand Golf Club in Homer, Nebraska (Courtesy of Landmand Golf Club)
The greens at Landmand are similarly huge. Average greens at most U.S. courses are between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet – purely for example, Augusta National Golf Club’s greens average just over 6,400 square feet, while those at Pebble Beach Golf Links are tiny at about 3,500 square feet. At Landmand, King-Collins constructed putting surfaces that frequently blow past 20,000 square feet.
As a comparison for King-Collins fans, Collins said he receives frequent comments on the size of the fourth green at Sweetens Cove, an Alps-inspired putting surface stretching some 80 yards front to back. At Landmand, the fourth green from Sweetens would be only the fifth-largest putting surface.
Collins cites the par-3 fifth at Landmand as a great example of a large green fitting a big landscape. The approach from the back tee is some 240 yards across a chasm to a putting surface of more than 25,000 square feet.
“You look at it, and yeah it seems big, but then you get on it and realize it’s huge,” Collins said. “It has to be to fit. Standing on the tee, even a 12,000-square-foot green on top of that ridge would look stupid. It would look like a pimple on the ass of an elephant. It would look like we shied away from the landscape. We had to build features that embraced that boldness.”
It’s all part of the width and size serving strategy. Players shouldn’t just whack away and expect an easy next shot from a wide, forgiving fairway, especially if the wind blows. There’s skill to discerning the best route to any hole, Collins said, and golfers better think before they swing.
“Every shot on every golf course we ever do, we want to have a meaning behind it,” he said. “We don’t want any hole to take a shot off. We always want the golfer engaged. That may mean hazard placement, or in a lot of cases at a place like Landmand, it’s a big contour. … Each hole at Landmand was built to ask varying versions of some type of questions, and a lot of that is through contour.”
Ambience. Simply put, nothing matters more when debating the merits of various 19th holes around the United States.
Ambience.
Simply put, nothing matters more when debating the merits of various 19th holes around the United States. So say Golfweek’s Best 800-plus raters who were polled to determine the top 10 golf course bars and restaurants. More than 400 votes were cast to establish this list.
Views are important, but not everything. Same goes for the food. The drinks menu matters, of course. Service is key. But none of these alone is enough to earn a place on Golfweek’s Best initial list of top 19th holes that includes three private clubs and, perhaps more importantly, seven spots where anyone can grab a seat.
The Tap Room at Pebble Beach Resort in California (Courtesy of Pebble Beach)
Instead, it’s all about the vibe. A chance to relax, just hang out. Enjoy a sip, the conversation, the golf and the heritage. It can be difficult to describe what makes one space a better hangout than others, but you know it when you see it. And then you never want to leave.
Check out Golfweek’s Best ranking of Top 10 19th holes. And by that,
we mean not just on this website. Go see for yourself.
“I enjoy having fun. I enjoy laughing. I enjoy interacting with people.”
HOUSTON — Peyton Manning was holding court, much like he did for so many Sundays during an incredible National Football League career that spanned 18 seasons and included Super Bowls for two different franchises.
And although he wasn’t the only celebrity at a private event held Wednesday at Truth BBQ, just a few miles from Memorial Park — the site of this week’s Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open — he was certainly the biggest. PGA Tour star Keith Mitchell and Manning’s former teammate Owen Daniels were among the others floating around the room, but Manning was undeniably the center of attention.
And while he rises up in these scenarios, Manning is nothing if not gracious, even starting his appearance by filling out a name tag and placing it on his lapel, as if those who showed up might not pick him out of the crowd.
Manning’s life after football has included plenty of golf — he’s a member at Augusta National among other courses — and his appearance on The Match with Steph Curry was a fun showcase for his golf talents.
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And now, Manning, Mitchell, tennis star Andy Roddick, Jim Nantz and a number of other partners are riding a high as the group’s nine-hole Sweetens Cove has emerged as one of the golf world’s darlings, often considered a must-play for those in the area. The group started distilling bourbon and under the direction of CEO Mark Rivers — who was also on hand Wednesday — the group hopes to expand into multiple markets.
The partners brought on Tennessee native Marianne Eaves to serve as master blender. Known as Kentucky’s first female master distiller since Prohibition, Eaves spent time at Castle & Key and Brown-Forman and was named one of America’s Top 40 under 40 Tastemakers by Wine Enthusiast Magazine.
Golfweek caught up with Manning during the crowded event to talk about golf, bourbon, football and his memories of Houston, all over a sip of the spirit he’s hoping will become a household name.
Q: You said earlier you’re a scratch beer drinker and a 14-handicap bourbon drinker. What’s this taste like to you?
Manning: I’m still probably not qualified to give you the proper terminology. I just really like the story that goes with it. Just start with the golf course. It’s kind of hard to find, hard to get to, but when you get to it, it’s worth the time and the effort. They think that’s kind of the same with this. It’s not super accessible.
But when you go through the effort to find it and you get it, it’s like, wow, it’s really special. So I just like that. Obviously, Tennessee’s important to me and so you know anytime I’m in the state of Tennessee, I have this peaceful, easy feeling — not to quote The Eagles — and so when I think about Sweetens Cove, I see the bottle, you know, I see ‘volunteer to share,’ I’ve got good memories of my time in Tennessee and the people there.
And now that I’m in this second chapter, what I miss the most about playing football is my teammates, being on that team. And so now I find myself on different teams and this is a fun Sweetens Cove team to be a part of.
Q: So why was Texas an important market for you guys? And how has that gone for you?
Manning: Yeah, I obviously just think you probably know the answer is that Texas is just critical in this space if you’re gonna, you know, gonna kind of become serious about it and we weren’t sure how this was gonna go.
You know, this started out as a kind of a fun project with the golf course, because of this tradition, that we witnessed in front of us, that people were doing a shot of whiskey before they hit their first shot. Leaving the bottle for the group behind it — a very kind of organic, unforced tradition.
Like, maybe we should start our own (bourbon) — still kind of fun. And then all of a sudden we hire Marianne, who’s from the area from the Chattanooga area, once again an authentic connection, maybe this can be real, you know I was telling somebody, football critics are hard, but bourbon critics are downright tough.
I don’t hate the term ‘celebrities spirit,’ but I don’t think that’s what this is. It’s Marianne’s. But it pains (critics) to sort of have to give a good review to us because they don’t think you’re putting any time and effort behind it and so but when they do give you a good review, you’re like, wow, maybe the people maybe people like it.
Peyton Manning talks about bourbon, the golf course that’s become the darling of the golf world, and his time in Houston. (Contributed photo by Sammie Theige)
Q: In talking to Keith Mitchell, these guys on Tour are ambassadors for a lot of products, and believe it or not, you’ve had an endorsement or two in your day. (Manning smiles.) So Keith turns to me and goes, ‘Yeah, I’m not here for any of that (expletive). I’m here because this is fun. This is really fun. We have a golf course that’s fun and playable and a bourbon that tastes great.’ What’s it like to see athletes and other people in this space just genuinely excited about something and not doing it because they have to?
Manning: Well, I think it’s great, especially, you know, during these times when you weren’t allowed to be together and you couldn’t have any fun in this kind of setting. So I think that’s it speaks to how all this got started.
We launched during the middle of COVID in April of 2020. I wouldn’t recommend launching during a pandemic, but we did it and here we are. And so, you know, I think anytime we have these get-togethers — we’ve been down in New Orleans, Denver, Indianapolis, Dallas and now Houston; I have a little better attendance than Andy, but you don’t have to put that — I love being together. I love being with people. Like you said, there’s smiling and having fun and seeing they genuinely like it. I mean, I can kind of tell when there’s somebody’s now who really thinks it tastes good and they’re not just saying it because I’m there.
Q: Word is that Jim Nantz occasionally drives around and does play-by-play when folks are on the tee boxes at Sweetens Cove. Did you ever think it would become something like this? You’re a golf guy. You love it. But to think of Jim Nantz calling golf shots at your golf course. Did you see this?
Manning: No. Never. I mean never. And to hear Rob Collins (principal designer at King-Collins Golf Design), who built the course, talk about Sweetens Cove before we got involved in it and where it’s gone, that’s fun.
I mean, you know, that Jim Nantz is narrating my friend Case’s 7-iron or 8-iron on No. 9 — it’s like you’re making it up, right? You’re making it up. And only Nantz can do it: ‘There’s a little breeze coming out of the east. What have you got there, Nick? I think he’s got a seven.’
I mean, the videos are incredible. Jim does it because he loves it. That was cool and Jim’s a passionate, romantic guy. He loves the little things and he loves the story, too. So that’s a fun connection to him.
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Q: Did you think you’d have this much fun in retirement? The TV, the golf course, the bourbon. Look at you and Eli on Monday nights, having fun. It’s funny. I mean, except when you had Josh Allen on and jinxed him, everything else seems great. Did you think it would be this much fun?
Manning: No, I agree. It’s been so much fun. I enjoy having fun. I enjoy laughing. I enjoy interacting with people. That’s why I played team sports, you know, and I gravitated toward team sports and you know, it’s the interaction with the people and so this has been a really fun team to be a part of and that’s just the word you know people are excited about it.
They’re having fun. We’re everybody’s kind of curious where it’s gonna go, you know, we’re excited about it. Everybody’s, you know, very passionate about it.
Q: We’re here for the Houston Open. Give us some Houston memories. What do you think about when you come to this town?
Manning: I’ve got a buddy who I went to high school with who is out in the crowd here — he lives in Houston — and I remember coming to a Houston-Dodgers game. Mike Scott pitched. Fernando (Valenzuela) was pitching. (Pedro) Guerrero was playing. We drove over, and I went to AstroWorld.
My dad (Archie) played for the Oilers. I was six, but we didn’t move here. We stayed in New Orleans. Tuesday’s kind of your universal off-day, so on Monday after practice he would catch a $37 Southwest flight and come home to have dinner with us Monday night. He would take us to school on Tuesday and then come back over here.
We got to come over, too, and I got to be a ball boy for a game here — a Steelers game — and I got to serve Gatorade to the team. So those are my early memories of Houston.
Then when realignment happened, when the Texans came into the league, we were somewhat fortunate, we were beneficiaries that we got out of this brutal division with the Patriots, Dolphins, Bills and Jets, who all were good back then. Back then, they all made the playoffs — like three of them made it in one year. And so we got realigned to the AFC South and I got to come down and play Houston, which, look, when you’re a new franchise, there’s going to be growing pains.
But in 2002, I remember coming down here and it was fun because all my New Orleans friends came up here for this game. Mr. McNair was a great, great man. Somebody that I got to know so I have fond memories of Houston. And my dad has fond memories playing for the Oilers.
Former NFL star Owen Daniels and his wife Angela talk with Peyton Manning at a Sweetens Cove party in Houston. (Contributed photo by Sammie Theige)
Q: Speaking of Owen Daniels — I talked to him out there, and he tells me he just put a huge simulator in his garage. His wife told me he goes out there every day to hit balls. Where are you at with this? Are you playing a lot? And by the way, he says he hasn’t played Sweetens yet. You need to get him out there.
Manning: I know I do. I mean, a lot of people want to go play. I’m all for guys like Owen going to play there.
In Denver, I played in two January playoff games over 65 degrees. They keep the pins in year-round there. I’d rather be outside playing, you know, with some buddies — but my weekend golf is gone. I’m coaching kids sports and so that’s over. So if I don’t get out on a Wednesday, I’m probably not getting out there in the week, but I still love playing.
I love organizing a golf trip. I love the itinerary. I’m a big voice memo guy. I’m just sort of sending a 14-minute voice memo with the whole itinerary.
From cool golf gear to stylish clothing to cool gadgets and great bourbon, there is something here for every golf-loving Dad.
Father’s Day and golf have become synonymous because so many dads love to play and, traditionally, the final round of the U.S. Open is contested on Father’s Day Sunday (June 20). This year, with the West Coast time advantage as the tournament is played at the South Course at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, many dads have plenty of time to get in 18 holes in the morning before settling in to watch the game’s best players tackle one of the most beautiful and challenging venues in golf.
If you are struggling for ideas about what to get a golf-loving father this year, Golfweek has you covered. Check out the cool gear and accessories in the 2021 Father’s Day Gift Guide.
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